Fic: And this morning we had pancakes
ELSEWHERE IN THE UNIVERSE, IT IS STILL THURSDAY.
And this morning we had pancakes
PG J2, 2250 words, title from Rain Man
Remix of akintay’s Maple Syrup.
*
About a week after Jensen moves in, Jared’s mom sends them a waffle iron. It comes in a bow-wrapped box with a greeting card on which fluffy kittens are hugging or playing or maybe striving for second base, it’s hard to say.
Jensen unwraps it and stares down at it and then he sticks his head around the living room door. “Jared,” he says. “Your mom sent us a waffle iron.”
Jared had been busying himself with ostensibly reading his script, which really meant throwing peanut M&Ms into the air and trying to catch them with his mouth. Apparently, the waffle iron news is distracting enough to break his concentration.
“Ow,” he says, as the latest airborne M&M lands on his nose. “Mom sent you a waffle iron?”
Jensen eyes the M&M debris. “I’m not cleaning that up, man.”
“I clean,” Jared protests. He dumps the half-empty bag of M&Ms back on the coffee table and twists around in his seat to eye Jensen suspiciously. “Mom sent you a waffle iron? She never sends me waffle irons. Lemme see”
“I’m her favourite son.” Jensen shrugs modestly and hefts the be-ribboned waffle iron box in his hands, holding it out to Jared with a look that says I’m not gonna carry it to your lazy ass. “Also, it was addressed to both of us, so technically she did send you a waffle iron.”
“If she put your name first, I’m gonna cry,” Jared says. He stands, stretches, scrubs a hand across his belly where his shirt has ridden up and his sweatpants have ridden down, and crosses the room to take the waffle iron out of Jensen’s hands. He examines it from all angles before finally, cautiously, tugging the ribbon off and lifting the lid to peer inside.
He sucks in a breath.
”Well?” Jensen says.
“It’s real,” Jared breathes, eyes wide and mystified. “She sent us a waffle iron. What the hell, mom?”
They both stare in silence down at the box in Jared’s hands. It doesn’t move, or explode, or give out any kind of explanation for its presence in their lives.
“There was a card,” Jensen says, at length, “but it just said that she was really happy for us. I guess she’s a bigger fan of the show than we thought.”
Jared shoots him a conspiratorial glance over the box. “Do you think if we pretend like we know what she’s talking about Mom’ll send us more stuff?”
“That right there?” Jensen says, taking the waffle iron back and heading for the kitchen. “That’s why I’m her favourite.”
Jared calls after him, “Imma drop her some hints for an ice-cream maker,” and Jensen yells back, “Good luck with that,” as he elbows the kitchen door shut behind him. He dumps the waffle iron on the counter top and, as an after thought, sticks Sherri’s ambiguous kitten card up on the fridge.
He forgets about them both.
The first time Jared wakes him up with coffee and an honest-to-god hair-ruffling is pretty weird. It’s probably only natural to find your best friend’s giant, sweaty hands on your head first thing in the morning a little on the odd side. Jensen takes it in his stride because he’s both magnanimous and used to Jared Padalecki.
“I have your sweat in my hair,” Jensen says, once he’s woken up a bit more, padded into the kitchen bare-foot in search of another cup of coffee.
Jared is sat on the table with his feet, still in running shoes, propped on a chair as he drinks cereal straight out of the bowl. “Your coffee was hot,” he says, around a mouthful of milk and cornflakes. “And I carried it to you tenderly.”
“Sweatily,” Jensen says.
Jared throws a soggy cornflake at him, so Jensen eats it. He watches Jared drain the last of his milk/cereal soup, watches a drop of milk escape his mouth and trickle down his chin, and then he says, “You need a shower, man. We’re getting picked up soon.”
“Clif loves my natural odour,” Jared says, automatically, but he slides off of the table and drops his bowl into the sink. He nudges Jensen with his shoulder as he passes by and adds, “I made more coffee”
Jensen nudges Jared back. He watches him leave the room and then he waits to hear the shower running and then he pours himself that other cup.
He takes this new morning wake-up routine in his stride because honestly - swear you to secrecy, never mention this again honestly - the only weird thing about the whole situation is that Jensen doesn’t actually find it weird at all.
It took Jensen a few weeks to stop feeling strange about answering Jared’s phone - their phone, now Jensen shares the bill and Jared stuck an encouraging ‘use me!’ post-it to the handset - and it took everyone else around the same length of time to get used to it, too. Tom had muttered darkly about how quickly they’d get sick of each other’s faces. Chris had just been annoyed that he’d had to change their contact details on his cell.
But everyone gets used to it and now when the phone starts ringing whilst Jensen’s making a sandwich and Jared’s God-knows-where doing God-knows-what, Jensen has no qualms about grabbing the phone off the hook.
“Hey,” he says, tucking the phone under his ear and slicing a tomato.
“Afternoon, Mrs Padalecki,” Chad says. “Is the husband around?”
Jensen adds a layer of tomato to his sandwich and licks the juice off his thumb. “I’ll check,” he says.
He sticks his head out of the kitchen door and shouts, “Jared, are we married?”
There’s a pause.
“Is that a trick question?” Jared calls back.
“It’s Chad,” Jensen yells.
“Oh.” Jared’s distant, slightly muffled voice sounds like it’s coming closer. “Just a sec.”
Jensen turns back to Chad on the telephone. “He’ll be with you shortly,” he says, dropping the handset onto the kitchen counter. He cuts his sandwich into careful halves, fetches two plates out of the cupboard and sits back to wait for Jared.
“Your mom sent us melon ballers,” Jensen says.
Jared doesn’t really need a spotter these days - he’s comfortable enough and adept enough with their home gym, and saves the heavier lifting for his pricey downtown gym membership, that it’s more of a bonus than a vital necessity. But Jensen likes to hang out while Jared’s working out anyway.
He figures it a little like how his mom used to go to the salon for a gossip instead of a hair cut, so Jared is bench pressing and Jensen is reading the latest trashy crime novel he picked up from the airport. It’s becoming a compulsion, almost.
“Melon ballers?” Jared says. He racks the weights and drops his head back against the bench, letting out a long, slow breath. “Ballers? As in, more than one?”
“As in more than one,” Jensen confirms. The hard-boiled cop is certain the new drug ring in town has something to do with the corruption in his own force, but nobody will believe him except the hooker with a heart of gold. Jensen’s pretty sure they’re going to sleep together soon.
Jared huffs out another breath. He’s still panting a little. “How many melons does she think we eat?”
“How many melons does she think we need balled?” Jensen says. He lowers his book for long enough to snag up the water bottle and toss it to Jared, who catches it with a grateful expression. He twists the lid off and tilts his head back and gulps the water down in long, hard gulps, eyes closed and throat working, free hand splayed across his sweat-damp chest.
Jensen turns back to his book.
The cop and the hooker have a lot of sexual tension to work through.
One second Jared’s stood right next to him, guarding their shopping cart while Jensen mulls over muesli versus Count Chocula. The next, Jensen decides to get both - he’s a minor TV star, he can afford two boxes of cereal if he wants them - and when he looks up, boxes in hand, Jared has gone and so has the cart.
“I should get a leash,” Jensen mutters, dumping the cereal back on the shelf.
He spots Jared in the dairy section, a couple of aisles later. Jared may be surprisingly stealthy when it comes to disappearing, but he’s never hard to spot again afterwards. It’s a bonus.
Jensen’s plan is to just stalk up behind Jared and smack him round the back of the head, but he hasn’t gotten much closer when he realises that Jared has somehow gotten caught up in conversation with a young couple. Or more like, judging by the confused-yet-charmed looks on their faces, Jared has somehow gotten them caught up in the conversation.
Jensen honestly isn’t trying to sneak up or eavesdrop on whatever they’re talking about, but after all these years Jared’s voice has become like a radio station Jensen can’t help but tune in to. When Jared is talking, Jensen is listening - and when Jared says his name, that’s even harder to miss.
“Jensen loves Greek yoghurt,” Jared is saying, whilst the couple stares up at him. “He has it with honey. I don’t think I’d ever even tried it before I met him, but it’s really good. Here,” and he grabs a pot out of the cooler and waves at his new friends. “This is the kind he likes. You ever tried it?”
They shake their heads.
“You should try it,” Jared says, with a nod and a sunny smile, and he dumps the offending yoghurt into the couple’s cart. They look a little shell-shocked.
Jensen backs out of the aisle at that, retraces his steps to the cereal and the great muesli versus Count Chocula debate. He only started eating Count Chocula a couple months ago - because Jared wanted him to try it. Because it’s Jared’s favourite.
Jensen just stands there for a little while, staring down at the Count’s inviting smile.
When he returns to the dairy aisle, Jared’s taking another pot of yoghurt off the shelf - for their cart, for Jensen - and he looks up pretty much as soon as Jensen appears, greeting him with a broad, broad smile.
Jared always knows when to look up.
Sometimes they cook together, when they have the time and the energy and the ingredients. Tonight they made a pretty decent lasagne to celebrate their day off, ate it with a bottle of wine, and now the clearing up together feels slow and comfortable.
“We are so awesome,” Jared muses, scrubbing a saucepan at a leisurely pace.
“Definitely,” Jensen agrees. They fell into this system on day one, it seems: Jared does the washing and Jensen does the drying, standing close enough that they can elbow each other and talk quietly.
Jensen hums along with whatever is on the radio, wiping a wine glass down with his dish towel. Jared’s tapping out a bass rhythm with his foot.
“Hey,” Jared says, softly. Jensen glances up, but Jared’s staring down into the soapy water, focused intently on cleaning. Jensen follows his gaze, watches Jared’s hands move underwater.
“This is good,” Jared says. “Living with you, I mean. I’m glad you moved in.”
He holds a wet plate out to Jensen and Jensen takes it, wipes it thoroughly before replying.
“Me too,” he says.
Later, as he’s putting the dishes away, Jensen passes by the fridge and catches the eye of a cuddling kitten. He takes the card off of the fridge and rereads Sherri’s message and, after a moment’s hesitation, sticks the card back up in its place. The fridge just doesn’t look the same without it.
It happens when they're doing the laundry.
It’s been a slow sort of Saturday morning, in which Jared woke Jensen up with coffee and they ate Count Chocula in their pyjama bottoms and Jensen has been carrying around this warm champagne bubble of a feeling inside his chest, this feeling of wait, and then they do the laundry.
What happens is, Jensen is loading the whites into their dryer and Jared is muttering to himself as he pours out detergent. Jensen looks up because it is the sound of Jared’s voice.
He takes in the curve of Jared’s spine, visible through his tee, and his gaze wanders of its own accord to the curls of hair behind Jared’s ears, his elbows and fingers, the indentation his teeth have left on his bottom lip.
Just like he always does, Jared looks up.
Whatever stupid, bubbling affection it is in his chest, Jensen knows he can’t mask it on his face and he knows - then and there he knows - that he doesn’t want to mask it either, so he just lets it all out in a smile.
“What?” Jared says.
“This,” Jensen says. He waves a hand. He can’t stop smiling “All of this. We’re doing our laundry together. This is nice.”
There’s a moment of Jared just looking at him, brow furrowed, and then something changes. Jensen can’t pinpoint the shift or explain how he knows what it means, but it’s in the same language as his early morning wake-up coffee and their dishwashing routine and the sound of Jared’s voice. It’s a language he’s fluent in.
“This is nice,” he says again. “You know?”
He pushes himself away from the dryer and steps forward.
Jared meets him halfway.
*
And this morning we had pancakes
PG J2, 2250 words, title from Rain Man
Remix of akintay’s Maple Syrup.
*
About a week after Jensen moves in, Jared’s mom sends them a waffle iron. It comes in a bow-wrapped box with a greeting card on which fluffy kittens are hugging or playing or maybe striving for second base, it’s hard to say.
Jensen unwraps it and stares down at it and then he sticks his head around the living room door. “Jared,” he says. “Your mom sent us a waffle iron.”
Jared had been busying himself with ostensibly reading his script, which really meant throwing peanut M&Ms into the air and trying to catch them with his mouth. Apparently, the waffle iron news is distracting enough to break his concentration.
“Ow,” he says, as the latest airborne M&M lands on his nose. “Mom sent you a waffle iron?”
Jensen eyes the M&M debris. “I’m not cleaning that up, man.”
“I clean,” Jared protests. He dumps the half-empty bag of M&Ms back on the coffee table and twists around in his seat to eye Jensen suspiciously. “Mom sent you a waffle iron? She never sends me waffle irons. Lemme see”
“I’m her favourite son.” Jensen shrugs modestly and hefts the be-ribboned waffle iron box in his hands, holding it out to Jared with a look that says I’m not gonna carry it to your lazy ass. “Also, it was addressed to both of us, so technically she did send you a waffle iron.”
“If she put your name first, I’m gonna cry,” Jared says. He stands, stretches, scrubs a hand across his belly where his shirt has ridden up and his sweatpants have ridden down, and crosses the room to take the waffle iron out of Jensen’s hands. He examines it from all angles before finally, cautiously, tugging the ribbon off and lifting the lid to peer inside.
He sucks in a breath.
”Well?” Jensen says.
“It’s real,” Jared breathes, eyes wide and mystified. “She sent us a waffle iron. What the hell, mom?”
They both stare in silence down at the box in Jared’s hands. It doesn’t move, or explode, or give out any kind of explanation for its presence in their lives.
“There was a card,” Jensen says, at length, “but it just said that she was really happy for us. I guess she’s a bigger fan of the show than we thought.”
Jared shoots him a conspiratorial glance over the box. “Do you think if we pretend like we know what she’s talking about Mom’ll send us more stuff?”
“That right there?” Jensen says, taking the waffle iron back and heading for the kitchen. “That’s why I’m her favourite.”
Jared calls after him, “Imma drop her some hints for an ice-cream maker,” and Jensen yells back, “Good luck with that,” as he elbows the kitchen door shut behind him. He dumps the waffle iron on the counter top and, as an after thought, sticks Sherri’s ambiguous kitten card up on the fridge.
He forgets about them both.
The first time Jared wakes him up with coffee and an honest-to-god hair-ruffling is pretty weird. It’s probably only natural to find your best friend’s giant, sweaty hands on your head first thing in the morning a little on the odd side. Jensen takes it in his stride because he’s both magnanimous and used to Jared Padalecki.
“I have your sweat in my hair,” Jensen says, once he’s woken up a bit more, padded into the kitchen bare-foot in search of another cup of coffee.
Jared is sat on the table with his feet, still in running shoes, propped on a chair as he drinks cereal straight out of the bowl. “Your coffee was hot,” he says, around a mouthful of milk and cornflakes. “And I carried it to you tenderly.”
“Sweatily,” Jensen says.
Jared throws a soggy cornflake at him, so Jensen eats it. He watches Jared drain the last of his milk/cereal soup, watches a drop of milk escape his mouth and trickle down his chin, and then he says, “You need a shower, man. We’re getting picked up soon.”
“Clif loves my natural odour,” Jared says, automatically, but he slides off of the table and drops his bowl into the sink. He nudges Jensen with his shoulder as he passes by and adds, “I made more coffee”
Jensen nudges Jared back. He watches him leave the room and then he waits to hear the shower running and then he pours himself that other cup.
He takes this new morning wake-up routine in his stride because honestly - swear you to secrecy, never mention this again honestly - the only weird thing about the whole situation is that Jensen doesn’t actually find it weird at all.
It took Jensen a few weeks to stop feeling strange about answering Jared’s phone - their phone, now Jensen shares the bill and Jared stuck an encouraging ‘use me!’ post-it to the handset - and it took everyone else around the same length of time to get used to it, too. Tom had muttered darkly about how quickly they’d get sick of each other’s faces. Chris had just been annoyed that he’d had to change their contact details on his cell.
But everyone gets used to it and now when the phone starts ringing whilst Jensen’s making a sandwich and Jared’s God-knows-where doing God-knows-what, Jensen has no qualms about grabbing the phone off the hook.
“Hey,” he says, tucking the phone under his ear and slicing a tomato.
“Afternoon, Mrs Padalecki,” Chad says. “Is the husband around?”
Jensen adds a layer of tomato to his sandwich and licks the juice off his thumb. “I’ll check,” he says.
He sticks his head out of the kitchen door and shouts, “Jared, are we married?”
There’s a pause.
“Is that a trick question?” Jared calls back.
“It’s Chad,” Jensen yells.
“Oh.” Jared’s distant, slightly muffled voice sounds like it’s coming closer. “Just a sec.”
Jensen turns back to Chad on the telephone. “He’ll be with you shortly,” he says, dropping the handset onto the kitchen counter. He cuts his sandwich into careful halves, fetches two plates out of the cupboard and sits back to wait for Jared.
“Your mom sent us melon ballers,” Jensen says.
Jared doesn’t really need a spotter these days - he’s comfortable enough and adept enough with their home gym, and saves the heavier lifting for his pricey downtown gym membership, that it’s more of a bonus than a vital necessity. But Jensen likes to hang out while Jared’s working out anyway.
He figures it a little like how his mom used to go to the salon for a gossip instead of a hair cut, so Jared is bench pressing and Jensen is reading the latest trashy crime novel he picked up from the airport. It’s becoming a compulsion, almost.
“Melon ballers?” Jared says. He racks the weights and drops his head back against the bench, letting out a long, slow breath. “Ballers? As in, more than one?”
“As in more than one,” Jensen confirms. The hard-boiled cop is certain the new drug ring in town has something to do with the corruption in his own force, but nobody will believe him except the hooker with a heart of gold. Jensen’s pretty sure they’re going to sleep together soon.
Jared huffs out another breath. He’s still panting a little. “How many melons does she think we eat?”
“How many melons does she think we need balled?” Jensen says. He lowers his book for long enough to snag up the water bottle and toss it to Jared, who catches it with a grateful expression. He twists the lid off and tilts his head back and gulps the water down in long, hard gulps, eyes closed and throat working, free hand splayed across his sweat-damp chest.
Jensen turns back to his book.
The cop and the hooker have a lot of sexual tension to work through.
One second Jared’s stood right next to him, guarding their shopping cart while Jensen mulls over muesli versus Count Chocula. The next, Jensen decides to get both - he’s a minor TV star, he can afford two boxes of cereal if he wants them - and when he looks up, boxes in hand, Jared has gone and so has the cart.
“I should get a leash,” Jensen mutters, dumping the cereal back on the shelf.
He spots Jared in the dairy section, a couple of aisles later. Jared may be surprisingly stealthy when it comes to disappearing, but he’s never hard to spot again afterwards. It’s a bonus.
Jensen’s plan is to just stalk up behind Jared and smack him round the back of the head, but he hasn’t gotten much closer when he realises that Jared has somehow gotten caught up in conversation with a young couple. Or more like, judging by the confused-yet-charmed looks on their faces, Jared has somehow gotten them caught up in the conversation.
Jensen honestly isn’t trying to sneak up or eavesdrop on whatever they’re talking about, but after all these years Jared’s voice has become like a radio station Jensen can’t help but tune in to. When Jared is talking, Jensen is listening - and when Jared says his name, that’s even harder to miss.
“Jensen loves Greek yoghurt,” Jared is saying, whilst the couple stares up at him. “He has it with honey. I don’t think I’d ever even tried it before I met him, but it’s really good. Here,” and he grabs a pot out of the cooler and waves at his new friends. “This is the kind he likes. You ever tried it?”
They shake their heads.
“You should try it,” Jared says, with a nod and a sunny smile, and he dumps the offending yoghurt into the couple’s cart. They look a little shell-shocked.
Jensen backs out of the aisle at that, retraces his steps to the cereal and the great muesli versus Count Chocula debate. He only started eating Count Chocula a couple months ago - because Jared wanted him to try it. Because it’s Jared’s favourite.
Jensen just stands there for a little while, staring down at the Count’s inviting smile.
When he returns to the dairy aisle, Jared’s taking another pot of yoghurt off the shelf - for their cart, for Jensen - and he looks up pretty much as soon as Jensen appears, greeting him with a broad, broad smile.
Jared always knows when to look up.
Sometimes they cook together, when they have the time and the energy and the ingredients. Tonight they made a pretty decent lasagne to celebrate their day off, ate it with a bottle of wine, and now the clearing up together feels slow and comfortable.
“We are so awesome,” Jared muses, scrubbing a saucepan at a leisurely pace.
“Definitely,” Jensen agrees. They fell into this system on day one, it seems: Jared does the washing and Jensen does the drying, standing close enough that they can elbow each other and talk quietly.
Jensen hums along with whatever is on the radio, wiping a wine glass down with his dish towel. Jared’s tapping out a bass rhythm with his foot.
“Hey,” Jared says, softly. Jensen glances up, but Jared’s staring down into the soapy water, focused intently on cleaning. Jensen follows his gaze, watches Jared’s hands move underwater.
“This is good,” Jared says. “Living with you, I mean. I’m glad you moved in.”
He holds a wet plate out to Jensen and Jensen takes it, wipes it thoroughly before replying.
“Me too,” he says.
Later, as he’s putting the dishes away, Jensen passes by the fridge and catches the eye of a cuddling kitten. He takes the card off of the fridge and rereads Sherri’s message and, after a moment’s hesitation, sticks the card back up in its place. The fridge just doesn’t look the same without it.
It happens when they're doing the laundry.
It’s been a slow sort of Saturday morning, in which Jared woke Jensen up with coffee and they ate Count Chocula in their pyjama bottoms and Jensen has been carrying around this warm champagne bubble of a feeling inside his chest, this feeling of wait, and then they do the laundry.
What happens is, Jensen is loading the whites into their dryer and Jared is muttering to himself as he pours out detergent. Jensen looks up because it is the sound of Jared’s voice.
He takes in the curve of Jared’s spine, visible through his tee, and his gaze wanders of its own accord to the curls of hair behind Jared’s ears, his elbows and fingers, the indentation his teeth have left on his bottom lip.
Just like he always does, Jared looks up.
Whatever stupid, bubbling affection it is in his chest, Jensen knows he can’t mask it on his face and he knows - then and there he knows - that he doesn’t want to mask it either, so he just lets it all out in a smile.
“What?” Jared says.
“This,” Jensen says. He waves a hand. He can’t stop smiling “All of this. We’re doing our laundry together. This is nice.”
There’s a moment of Jared just looking at him, brow furrowed, and then something changes. Jensen can’t pinpoint the shift or explain how he knows what it means, but it’s in the same language as his early morning wake-up coffee and their dishwashing routine and the sound of Jared’s voice. It’s a language he’s fluent in.
“This is nice,” he says again. “You know?”
He pushes himself away from the dryer and steps forward.
Jared meets him halfway.
*